TRADE UNION-

METHODS OF TRADE UNION

SUBMITTED TO:
SUBMITTED BY:
XYZ
(Assistant Professor)
(Department of Computer Science and Engineering)
 TABLE OF CONTENT
• What is Trade union
• Methods of trade union
i. Collective Bargaining
ii. Political Action
iii. Welfare Measures
iv. Industrial Action
WHAT IS TRADE UNION

A trade union is an association of workers formed with the object of

improving the conditions of workers. It is formed for protecting the
interests of workers. Workers have little bargaining capacity when they
are unorganized. In fact, trade union movement began against the
exploitation of workers by certain managements under the capitalist
system.
METHODS OF TRADE UNION
Method 1: Collective Bargaining:
Collective bargaining is the process in which working people, through their unions, negotiate
contracts with their employers to determine their terms of employment, including pay, benefits,
hours, leave, job health and safety policies, ways to balance work and family, and more.
Collective bargaining is a way to solve workplace problems. It is also the best means for
raising wages in America. Indeed, through collective bargaining, working people in unions
have higher wages, better benefits and safer workplaces.
The collective bargaining as a trade union method has been widely resorted to in almost all
industrialized countries of the world, particularly the USA, the UK and most other European
countries where strong well-organized unions with large membership have been firmly
entrenched.
Method 2: Political Action:
The political action method is intended to benefit workers in general or a substantial portion of
the working class rather than protecting the interests of the members only. In quite a number of
cases, different trade unions combine to form a common platform to pressurise the government
to refrain from or withdraw such economic, industrial or labour policies and programmes
which are detrimental to the interests of workers. There are also instances where trade unions
have utilized the services of eminent political personalities in getting specific industrial
disputes settled in favor of union members.
Exerting pressure on the government for enacting protective and pro-labour laws has been the
most widely used method adopted by early trade unions. 
Method 3: Welfare Measures:
Many trade unions with sound financial conditions, particularly the craft unions, provided
certain welfare measures for the benefit of their members. The benefits more usually provided
financial assistance in the event of sickness and disablement of the members and in the event
of death of the members, assistance including funeral expenses to the family.
In India, majority of the unions including the big ones are not in a position to arrange for these
benefits out of their funds. Only a few unions such as the Textile Labour Association,
Ahmedabad and Tata Workers’ Union, Jamshedpur have been engaged in providing some
measure of welfare amenities to their members. These benefits are merely in the form of
educational, recreational, cultural and limited medical facilities.
Method 4: Industrial Action:
Trade unions generally consider the right to strike as one of their basic rights. They contend
that collective bargaining without the right to strike has no significance. Trade unions, no
doubt, consider strike as the most powerful weapon in their armoury, they also resort to some
other forms of industrial action to pressurise the employers and the government for the
fulfilment of their objectives.
The more common of these are demonstration, picketing and boycott. In many cases, these
supplement strike action, but in some cases these are resorted to independently. Strikes and
other forms of industrial action are organised not only in the situation of industrial disputes,
but also against government’s anti-labour policies and programmes. In India, general strikes or
bandhs organised by central unions, mostly in combination, against government’s liberalised
economic and industrial policies and measures initiated in 1991, became a regular feature
during subsequent years.
Thank You